Archive for April, 2012

Generally it’s a good idea to focus transit service on trunk lines, to put the service where the most riders are. So, generally, King County Metro should be congratulated for its proposed route changes.

But that’s not the only priority. While nobody expects Metro to go everywhere, it shouldn’t cut entire neighborhoods off, particularly job centers where workers have grown to rely upon transit, which benefits all of us as well as the riders. Outside the major nodes it’s ok to ask people to walk, in excess of a half-mile in some cases, but how much beyond that is ok?

Harbor Island is about to lose its service entirely outside of the SW Spokane Street corridor at the south end. It’s more than a mile from there to the northern-most employers such as Vigor Marine and Crowley, much of it not particularly safe or comfortable, particularly in the dark. Today Route 35 runs two buses each rush hour (none the rest of the time), a bit

Photo courtesy of King County Department of Transportation

earlier than normal closing times in the afternoon but moderately workable for now. This route will go away under the current proposal. Only Spokane will be served by the new Route 50, leaving the rest of the island 100% high and dry.

The current riders don’t want much, or so says the one who inspired this post — just a couple trips up the island at rush hour, ideally including one a little later than the current 4:09. Something a few blocks from work rather than the solid mile.

Solutions might be a special looping version of Route 50 a couple times per rush hour (either in addition to or instead of the main 50), or a separate rush hour shuttle connecting from the 50 to the north end of the island. Neither would be free, but either would be cheap vs. deleting a whole district from service.

Transit should help the the city function well, and parallel our regional strategy. Harbor Island packs a lot of economic punch, cramming in a lot of seaport and industry uses. It’s done this for generations. We’re not talking about leapfrogging new development and expecting new public services to cover it. This is about serving what’s existed for generations, and an existing community of riders.

On Monday (April 23), in celebration of Earth Day and Environmental Works 42nd anniversary, the nonprofit community design center and its friends at John Barker Landscape Architects will occupy the parking spaces in front of Environmental Works at 402 15th Ave. E. in Seattle, converting them into a Parklet (mini-park). They invite you to join them from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in their outdoor living room with plants from the green thumbs at Seattle Tilth, ice cream from Par Fait (a portion of ice cream proceeds will go to EW), and coffee courtesy of their neighbors at Victrola. And, yes, they know Earth Day is April 22, but they aren’t working that day.

Madison Development Group plans to redevelop the “Bauhaus Books and Coffee” block on Capitol Hill. Photos by Patrick Doherty

To read the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog and its various commenters, that’s exactly how you might describe the current local sentiment about the impending redevelopment of a site at the southeast corner of this key “gateway” intersection, as it’s identified in the City of Seattle’s Pike/Pine Design Guidelines.
But seriously the collection of structures at this site (most recognizable as the “Bauhaus Books and Coffee” block) is definitely a character-defining element of the Pike-Pine Corridor, both in terms of its historic structures and some much-loved, iconic businesses located therein. In addition, as its “gateway” identification connotes, it’s one of the first remarkable collection of older, character-defining buildings as one arrives to the neighborhood from Downtown.
And now comes Madison Development Group (MDG) with a proposal to redevelop the entire site with a mixed-use building, which naturally raises local hackles. Why, ask many locals, do these sites need to be redeveloped when they contain such lovely buildings?
Well, market forces are obviously at play here, combined with permissive zoning that allows substantially more development potential than the existing buildings embody – as the City implements its growth-management-sympathetic goals of accommodating urban growth, supporting transit-oriented communities and generally building urban villages. In fact, the zoning has allowed greater development there for decades. But market forces are finally catching up with that development potential.
What tempers the all-out higher development potential of the underlying zoning are the above-mentioned Pike/Pine Design Guidelines that contain some very specific language encouraging the most sensitive design possible where “character structures” are involved. In essence, within the Pike/Pine Conservation Overlay District such “character structures” should be incorporated to the greatest extent feasible within the new development scheme. Some purists scoff at this, labeling it as a “façadectomy” approach to historic-building conservation, but frankly, short of full-on landmark or preservation-district level of control, that’s about the most the City can do legally to “conserve” these character-defining elements of such a neighborhood (be that Pike/Pine, Fremont or Greenwood).
What we should all hope for now is that MDG and its architects live up to the challenge to bring a truly sympathetic solution to this thorny design problem. Somewhere between preservation of the buildings as-is and a pastiche-level façadectomy approach should be the right, elegant solution that melds the character and essence of these historic buildings with a handsome, contemporary companion. This can be done, but it takes a high level of finesse not often seen in this neighborhood or elsewhere in Seattle . I won’t drag you through my list of successes and failures, but suffice it to say there have been some recent examples in this very neighborhood of both elegant additions, breathing new life into character buildings, and awkward, heavy-handed boxes abruptly shoved down on top of historic buildings. Let’s hope the former examples inspire MDG, not the latter!

An addition to Counterbalance Park at Queen Anne Avenue and Roy Street in Seattle is causing a debate about whether the public work of an architect should be changed without appropriate oversight. In this case, the work is by well-known Pacific Northwest landscape architect Robert Murase, who died in 2005. Here and here are some articles about the controversy.

About this Blog

Welcome to the Daily Journal of Commerce's SeattleScape blog. This blog focuses on how Seattle shapes itself -- its design, its planning and its aspirations. We will talk about what we're building, what we're losing and what we're preserving.

Opinions expressed by bloggers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

About SeattleScape's Bloggers

Patrick Doherty is economic development director for the city of Federal Way. He previously worked for the city of Seattle in planning and development, including managing the Design Review Program from 1994 to 2001. Patrick chaired the Queen Anne/Magnolia/South Lake Union Design Review Board from 2006 to 2008. He lives on Queen Anne Hill, enjoys exploring the city and the greater Pacific Northwest, photography, foreign languages and national and international travel.

Matt Hays has loved Seattle since birth. He lives in Belltown, walks
nearly everywhere, and recently rediscovered bicycling. Matt is
slightly obsessed with issues like pedestrian safety, parks and
vibrant neighborhoods. He's read every DJC since high school. Since
1996 Matt has been the proposal writer at Lease Crutcher Lewis.

Darby Watson is an urban planner and designer for Arup. She previously worked for the City of Seattle managing the Complete Streets program for SDOT. She is a former Seattle Design Commissioner and former Chair of the Urban Design and Preservation Division of the American Planning Association. She developed her (sometimes) keen sense of urbanism riding metro from Magnolia to Franklin High School in her teenage years.

She recently relocated to San Francisco and hopes to share her design and planning discoveries from the City by the Bay as well as reminisce about her native habitat.

Walter Schacht, FAIA is the managing principal at Schacht Aslani Architects. He is recognized for creating strong, modern buildings that transform educational, cultural and civic institutions, and for promoting public policies that advance the architectural community. Walter is an appointed member of the AIA Seattle Public Policy Board, a gubernatorial appointee to the State's Capital Projects Advisory Board and is AIA Washington Council's representative to the Architects and Engineers Legislative Council.

Charles R. (Chuck) Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. is an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting, including the use of innovative land use regulatory tools and sustainable development techniques on behalf of the private and public sectors and the successful redevelopment of infill properties under federal, state, and local regulatory regimes. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, and contributes regularly on urban development topics for several publications including The Atlantic, The Atlantic Cities, Grist, The Huffington Post, seattlepi.com, and myurbanist.com. His upcoming book, Urbanism Without Effort (Island Press, 2013) will be available this Winter.

Nate Cormier, PLA, LEED AP is a Principal at SvR in Seattle. He earned a masters from Harvard University in landscape architecture, but spends a surprising amount of time with civil engineers. Nate is currently leading the design of Bell Street Park and the Yesler Terrace public realm. He is also a Lecturer at the University of Washington College of Built Environments, a Board Director of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and an Executive Council Member of the Green Seattle Partnership.

Roger Valdez is director of Smart Growth Seattle, a partnership promoting a fresh land use code to manage neighborhood growth. It collaborates with homebuilders and other stakeholders to help city government adopt codes that are appropriate for meeting housing demand and preserving neighborhood character.

Scott Surdyke is a development consultant who has lived in Seattle for 23 years. He is originally from Baltimore, where he witnessed the transformation of that city's waterfront. Scott has served on the Seattle Design Review Board (NW Sector), and is an advocate for waterfront and transit-oriented development . He travels frequently to other cities and tries to understand what works well there, and believes that learning from those successes can help Seattle as it faces the challenges of growth.

Jon Silver is a DJC reporter and special section editor who has been living in Seattle since 1998. He gained his street smarts growing up on the mean cul-de-sacs of a master-planned community in Omaha, Neb.

Lynn Porter is the architecture and engineering editor at the DJC. She previously covered real estate for the newspaper. Porter loves cities and the urban landscape despite having a sense of direction that gives her a 50-50 shot of going the wrong way when leaving any building.

She has her own ideas about zoning, transit, historic preservation and other issues involving Seattle, but thinks yours are probably more interesting. So please offer your comments, and if you have news tips, contact Porter at lynn.porter@djc.com or at (206) 622-8272.